MAYDAY by Michael Albert

Imagine by a dreadful thought experiment, as I did at the time to understand what was going on, that a meteor hit Vietnam and wiped it off the face of the globe in 1964. The geopolitical and economic loss to the U.S. would have been barely discernable. Returning to the real universe, if by its active and courageous resistance Vietnam removed itself from the international circuits of U.S. capital and took over its own destiny, the demonstration effect would cost a lot. The deduction was that the war was not to prevent “the loss of Vietnam,” but to prevent Vietnam’s extricating itself from teaching others that they could extricate themselves too. The U.S. war in Indochina sought to teach, in contrast, that if you try to escape us, if you violate us in any way, you will not only fail; you will suffer immeasurably. You will go backwards, bombed even, if necessary, back to the Stone Age. The same logic has informed U.S. policy ever since. Do I repeat myself on this point. My apologies. But this point often seems to me to require repetition to get across.more..